I must admit that the action/adventure genre is not one of my favorites, but of course a well-made example can win me over. Seeing Master and Commander got me thinking about other large-scale adventure films that I respond to. Here's a few that I have fondness for:

Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, 1981)

Three Kings (Russell, 1999)

Lawrence of Arabia (Lean, 1962)

Gunga Din (Stevens, 1939)

The Guns of Navarone (Thompson, 1961)

The Last of the Mohicans (Mann, 1992)

Mutiny on the Bounty (Lloyd, 1935)

Hatari! (Hawks, 1962)

Beau Geste (Wellman, 1939)

Five Graves to Cairo (Wilder, 1943)

Captain Blood (Curtiz, 1935)

On Guard (De Broca, 1997)

Rob Roy (Caton-Jones, 1995)

Gladiator (Scott, 2000)

El Cid (Mann, 1961)

The Black Pirate (Parker, 1926)

Treasure Island (Haskin, 1950)

There are many others, of course, but that's a start. How about yours?

I thought Barry Lyndon and The Princess Bride were interesting choices, Matt, but I couldn't quite convince myself they were strickly adventure movies. (Of course, I did include Army of Darkness, so what the hell do I know?) I'd also include Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I want to see The Return of the King before I do._________________"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

I agree about a lot of your choices, guys; many would have made my list except I imposed a very strict definition on myself: no sci-fi, no Westerns, no comedy-adventures. I also avoided, for the most part, obvious war pictures.

Interesting pick, NW, with Hope and Glory. That's easily my favorite Boorman film, although I'm not sure I'd describe it as adventure rather than drama. I was this close to including some Kurosawa on my list, too, but I wanted to shy away from the samurai or martial-arts genres.

Matt, Great Escape, From Russia With Love, and Adventures of Robin Hood all got cut from my list at the last minute. Excellent choices, though. Hero would have made it for sure except for the aforementioned aversion to martial-arts.

I know I excluded a lot of adventure-oriented fare--probably unfairly--but I didn't want to list movies stuck in genre clothing. I wanted to think about flicks whose genre was adventure, pure and simple. Perhaps that attempt was entirely useless, though--is it even possible to separate adventure from genre?

Night Watchman--Lost World: Jurassic Park, but not the original? I nearly included the first one, but the sci-fi label got in the way. (I recently re-watched the third installment; man, that one is weak.)

Eric -- I've been a dinosaur freak since I was but a young'un. I love all three of the JP movies with all my heart, weaknesses and all, but Lost World is my favorite simply because I've been waiting to see a tyrannosaur rampaging down a busy city street since I was around seven. Lost World granted that wish. Thank you, Mr. Speilberg. Thank you._________________"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

I wanted to think about flicks whose genre was adventure, pure and simple. Perhaps that attempt was entirely useless, though--is it even possible to separate adventure from genre?

That's the problem I was having while putting together my list, so I just threw everything in that seemed appropriate. There seems to be a slight difference between action and adventure to me; for instance, I listed Mad Max, but not Die Hard. Maybe modern day seems less "adventure-y" than the future or the past. I've also seen only a handful of strictly adventure movies; or, at least, good ones, unless I were to include stuff like Treasure of the Four Crowns or Slave of the Cannibal God, which might have gotten me tossed out of the forum.

Speaking of the past, I'd like to add Pirates of the Carabbean to my list._________________"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

Aargh! And Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon!_________________"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

I'm sorry, the scientific supposition of this one doesn't hold water; a clone would not be idioter than the original. Assuming strictly for the sake of argument, of course, that the original in question was initially an idiot._________________"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

I'm sorry, the scientific supposition of this one doesn't hold water; a clone would not be idioter than the original. Assuming strictly for the sake of argument, of course, that the original in question was initially an idiot.

Well, even if i don't agree with this "i_hate_beltmann" individual, a clone can be on a different plane of intellect than the orginal. Say the orginal goes to school and the clone doesn't. The orginal would be smarter, unless of course the schooling was a complete failure, but for the sake of argument, its possible.

Actually, you're right. I was talking about inherent intelligence, but even then the brain continues to develop after birth, so, yeah, a clone could be idioter than the original. There goes my joke._________________"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."